Basketball
Favorite athlete: LeBron James, Ryan Lochte, Chase Utley
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Sweeping the CB sister schools and making it to State Playoffs for the first time in over a decade this past season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During a game of one of my first intramural seasons ever playing basketball (around third grade), I accidentally scored in the wrong basket. It counted for the other team, and we ended up losing by two points. Let’s just say I made a conscious effort after that to make sure it never happened again!
Music on iPod: Anything from acoustic to rap to country. However, some of my favorites include Jack Johnson, Justin Vernon, Rihanna, Beyonce, and Drake
Future plans: Attend college and major in Global Development
Words to live by: “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
One goal before turning 30: Join the Peace Corps
One thing people don’t know about me: Whenever I have time to myself, I’m either playing guitar or watching something on HGTV.
By Mary Jane Souder
Maggie Gratz caught the attention of Terry Rakowsky the first time he met the Central Bucks West senior as a middle school basketball player. Not only for what she could do on the court but for who she was.
“From the moment I met her for the first time – I said, ‘Wow, this kid is special,’” Rakowsky said. “You just know it, and then she follows up and never lets you down.
“Every page that turns – she’s doing something else that makes you go, ‘This kid is just amazing.’ She’s just an amazing kid.”
Gratz was the only senior on this year’s SOL Continental Conference co-championship squad who was part of the varsity for four years.
“She has just been such a leader on and off the court,” Rakowsky said. “Her depth, her character – she leads by example.
“I thought she was a phenomenal player for us in every way – the toughness, practices, how she would lead through example. She gave us leadership in every way.”
Basketball is just one small piece of Gratz’s life. An outstanding student, she is an officer in the National Honor Society. Gratz is vice president of West’s Student Government Organization, she is a member of student council, and she is a member of Key Club, the school’s service club. She also has been a member of the school choir for four years.
Gratz is a student volunteer at A Woman’s Place, an organization in Doylestown that provides support to victims of domestic violence, and she is on its Young Adult Advisory Board. She is the president and co-creator of the club called SAVA (Students Advocating Victims Awareness).
“We started that the middle of my junior year,” Gratz said. “I have a passion for the non-profit side of domestic violence.”
That passion could well be the focus of Gratz’s life work. She plans to major in global development or international development with her sights set on a career in anything from diplomacy to on-the-ground work in foreign countries, working with issues like racism or cultural clashes.
“I always changed what I wanted to do,” Gratz said. “When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher.
“When I started to think about what I really wanted to do, one thing I knew about myself is that I really enjoy being with people and I like people. I used that as my decision for going into this field.
“As technology advances, I still want to be someone who reminds people how much we have in common rather than what we do different. I have a big interest in wanting to better the world.”
From some, that might simply sound idealistic. From Gratz, it sounds like nothing more than a statement of fact.
“She’s a kid who’s going to make an impact,” Rakowsky said. “That’s what her focus is in life – to make an impact, and she already has. She’s impacted a whole bunch of kids on our team forever.”
Sports have been part of Gratz’s life for as long as she can remember. She began playing basketball in community rec league when she was seven years old, and before long, she was playing travel softball for Methacton until her family moved to the Doylestown area prior to her seventh grade year.
Despite her involvement in basketball, softball was Gratz’s number one sport.
“I have played softball since I could walk,” she said.
Gratz continued playing softball through her junior varsity season. She played travel softball and also played AAU basketball for the Renegades through her sophomore year.
“I always said softball was my sport, but that changed when I got to West,” she said. “The amount of commitment and time and energy put into West basketball made me realize it was something I not only loved but really wanted to complete and do to the best of my abilities.”
Gratz was the only member of her class who opted to try out for the high school team as a freshman. Her arrival on the scene coincided with Rakowsky taking over a program that stumbled to an 0-22 mark the preceding year.
“Everything was new, and you could tell that the girls who had been there before hadn’t experienced the workouts, the practices that we had my freshman year,” Gratz said. “To me, it was just West basketball.
“This is what it was, this is how intense it was going to be, but for the other girls, you could definitely see there was a big change. At first, it was frustrating because I had never had to work so hard. I had never been so serious in a sport, but I think as the years went on, it just became everyday occurrences, it became habit pretty much. It goes with the expectations, and they had to be met.”
As for being the lone freshman on the team, Gratz admits it was a bit intimidating.
“I had met coach Terry before tryouts, and he was, I felt, welcomed by the other girls,” she said. “I made some friends with the sophomores at the time – Amanda Parker, Jen Fabian, Sam Colloi. They helped me out a lot and helped me through the first season.”
That season marked the beginning of a special journey for Gratz and West basketball. The team improved every year, advancing to districts in Rakowsky’s second year at the helm and this year winning a conference title and earning a spot in the state tournament for the first time in over a decade.
“It was an absolute honor to be a part of it,” Gratz said. “It’s truly taught me that hard work gets you where you want to be.
“The past four years – yes, the basketball side has been wonderful, but the most important part was changing as a person and integrating basketball with life. These past four years have taught me a lot more than just winning and losing and how to be a teammate – it’s taught me how to pick myself up when I’m struggling, how to push myself when I think I’m going to give up. It’s those things that are going to carry on the rest of my life. It’s even better that it came along with so much success.”
Gratz, a captain, was a cornerstone of this year’s team.
“I think she gave us consistency on offense, but what she really did was she gave us that leadership on defense,” Rakowsky said. “When you think about the teams we’ve played against and the bigs - I still think she was the best big kid in our conference.
“Defensively, offensively, leadership, her ability to shoot that 15-footer this year which she really developed - she just gave us leadership in every way.”
It’s hardly a surprise that Gratz was the first person that came to Rakowsky’s mind when he received an e-mail about the NFL Wharton Prep Leadership Program at the University of Penn. Gratz, who aspires to one day join the Peace Corps, applied and was one of 32 young people from around the country – one of only nine females – chosen to participate in the program.
“It was extremely beneficial,” Gratz said. “It was pretty much a workshop of how to balance being a student and an athlete and how to take leadership from the court and from the academic side and turn it into leadership into the community or into our future world. Being a leader doesn’t just stay on the court or the field – it’s throughout life and the business world.”
Gratz is a student-athlete who has found the perfect balance between sports and academics.
“Academics are extremely important to me,” she said. “And sometimes they do take a lot of work and effort, so it was finding a balance between three-hour practices six days a week for basketball as well as the other clubs and interests I have.
“Also being able to be social – it was hard, but I feel like I found the balance, and I’m able to enjoy the people around me, have fun playing with my teammates and also balancing my schoolwork. It is an important part of my life.”
As for her college choice, Gratz is leaning toward the University of Virginia from a final list that includes Michigan and Tulane. She will leave behind a legacy that extends well beyond the basketball court.
“We have some sixth, seventh and eighth graders we work out with, and one of the girls was telling my daughter that Maggie was her hero,” Rakowsky said. “Whatever she’s touching is going to turn to gold. She’s just a special kid.”
